National Cultural Orientations Research Articles

ARE ORIENTATIONS OF NATIONAL CULTURE AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE GREEN ECONOMY INTERRELATED?

Green economy, as an environmentally sound, low-carbon economy, brings benefits not only to the natural environment but also to business and society. Decreasing environmental problems and promoting sustainable development are critical objectives of the green economy that seeks to balance the social, economic, and environmental pillars. Culture is an important supporting pillar of social development since it shapes the identity of a society, and there can be no sustainable development without considering this important factor. Most of the Sustainable Development Goals, adopted by the United Nations in 2015, emphasize the role of culture at its core. The primary purpose of this paper is to explore the interconnectedness of national cultural orientations and the stages of green economy development. In the research, we gathered secondary data from 60 countries from different parts of the world. The data for national cultural orientations were collected from the Hofstede insights website, whereas the values for the green economy indicators we gathered from the Green Growth Index Report. The research is based on descriptive statistical analysis. Its findings show that for some green economy indicators, there are statistical differences between different groups of countries with different national cultural orientations. For some indicators, there were no significant differences.

The cultural differences in the effects of carbon emissions - an EKC analysis.

The postmodernism stance critiques the current discourse of modern consumption–based societies. These societies legitimize their embedded beliefs and actions based on their lifestyle reflected through their consumption patterns. Their consumption patterns relate to carbon footprints that are yet to be explored in the current body of knowledge at the macro level. The legitimacy of their lifestyle and consumption patterns rely on their conscious efforts in reducing carbon footprints. This study uses the environmental Kuznets curve model and explores the impact of household lifestyle and household consumption patterns on CO2 emissions across different cultures and societies worldwide. 49 countries were taken to assess how different cultures define consumption patterns related to CO2 emission. The results showed that the curvilinear relationship between consumption and CO2 depends on the country’s national cultural orientation.

Impact of human capital and financial globalization on environmental degradation in OBOR countries: Critical role of national cultural orientations.

As regional economic integration and climate change are among the most important phenomena influencing economic and social sustainability in the modern world, a huge volume of research is directed towards these topics nowadays. The aim of this study is to explore the impact of financial globalization and human capital on environmental degradation in One Belt One Road (OBOR) countries in a cultural context that is largely under-explored in spite of being immensely crucial for fulfilling the United Nations' agenda on climate change mitigation. Owing to the presence of vast cultural differences, we check if the national scores on "Power Distance Index" and "Uncertainty Avoidance" in these countries matter for the environment. To this end, we use the latest and annual data set comprising 31 OBOR countries from 1996 to 2018, and employ panel econometric techniques that effectively deal with the threat of endogeneity. Results show that human capital improves environment while financial globalization deteriorates it. Interestingly, high power distance and uncertainty avoidance can reverse the positive impact of human capital. Similarly, financial globalization is favorable for environment in countries with low power distance and uncertainty avoidance. The findings are robust to the use of alternative specifications. Theoretical underpinnings and implications are discussed arising from the interesting reversal of traditional impacts in different cultural scenarios. Specifically, we recommend a culture of entrepreneurship, innovation, and inclusivity, promoted through increased tolerance towards risk-taking and participative decision-making to reap the benefits of human capital and globalization in improving the environment. Our results have important implications for climate change mitigation endeavors in OBOR countries and understanding the cultural context in this regard. Additionally, our study opens a vast avenue for the related research work in the future.

Acceptance and Penetration of Bitcoin: The Role of Psychological Distance and National Culture

Previous studies showed that a number of factors play roles in influencing Bitcoin penetration and acceptance, both at country and individual level, such as trust, perceived risk, security threat, perceived benefit, perceived ease of use, as well as macro-technological and socioeconomic factors. This present study aimed at finding theoretical models at the macro- and microlevels that are able to explain the penetration and acceptance. Study 1 examined hypotheses on the predictive relationship between national cultural orientation and Bitcoin penetration involving 60 countries. Study 2, using a construal level perspective, tested the predictive strength of psychological distances against Bitcoin acceptance, involving 565 Indonesians ( Mage= 28.88 years, SDage= 12.482 years). The results showed that national culture of individualism, uncertainty avoidance, and long-term orientation are able to predict the penetration. Spatial/physical distance, social distance, and hypothetical distance are able to predict the acceptance. This research is pivotal in obtaining the fundamental factors of community vulnerability in accepting and endorsing new e-money, i.e. Bitcoin. Monetary policy is expected to consider cultural and psychological factors in intervening against economic–technological disruptive innovations developing among societies.

Dimensions and Dynamics of National Culture: Synthesizing Hofstede With Inglehart.

Cross-national research on cultural differences across space and time intersects multiple disciplines but the prominence of concepts varies by academic fields. Hofstede’s dimensional concept of culture, to begin with, dominates in cross-cultural psychology and international management. Inglehart’s dynamic concept of culture, by contrast, prevails in sociology and political science. We argue that this disciplinary division is unfortunate because the two concepts are complementary, for which reason a synthesis rectifies their mutual weaknesses. Indeed, while Hofstede’s dimensional concept neglects cultural dynamics, Inglehart’s dynamic concept is dimensionally reductionist. We demonstrate empirically that combining these two concepts leads to an improved understanding of cultural differences. Inspired by Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, we use data from the European Value Studies and World Values Surveys for 495,011 individuals born between 1900 and 1999 in 110 countries and then show that change on these dimensions proceeds as Inglehart and his collaborators suggest. Most notably, younger generations have become more individualistic and more joyous. But even though economic development and generational replacement drive this cultural change, roughly half of the variation in national cultural orientations is unique to each country, due to lasting intercept differences in developmental trajectories that trace back to remote historic drivers. We discuss the implications for cross-national cultural research.

National culture and the learning organization

PurposeThis paper aims to examine the concept of learning organization (LO) in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Its objective is to provide initial insight into the potential impact of cultural context on how business managers perceive and interpret the LO theory and practice.Design/methodology/approachThe study was conducted in two phases; the first phase involved a focus group review and discussion of the LO concept and major LO models. With insights gained from the focus group discussions, the second phase of the study developed a number of hypotheses on the potential impact of national cultural orientations on the LO concept, which were tested with managerial responses to a survey.FindingsWhile UAE managers viewed and interpreted the LO concept in several different ways, most qualitative comments emphasized the following four aspects of an LO: workplace learning, organizational learning, learning climate and learning structure. Both sets of data revealed strong linkages between dimensions of national culture and the LO concept. Organizational culture partially mediated the relationship between national cultural orientations and aspects of an LO. Potential barriers to the implementation of the LO concept as perceived by respondents were largely related to national cultural value orientations and organizational cultures. The findings suggested that Western LO models and measurement instruments do not fully capture the socio-cultural reality of UAE-based organizations and the manner in which they view and interpret the LO concept and practices in their specific context.Research limitationsBeing a preliminary and largely reflective in nature, the present study has relied more heavily upon the qualitative data than the survey data.Practical implicationsThe findings of this study document the value of culture-specific criteria to monitor the performance of companies in their LO journey rather than using a standardized LO assessment model.Originality/valueThe study represents an initial attempt at enhancing the understanding of the impact of national culture on the development and application of the LO concept and the challenges it faces in the UAE context.

Cross-country Entrepreneurship: The Interaction between Economic Development and Institutions

This paper examines the variations in country-level entrepreneurship rates due to the interplay between economic development, government regulations, and national culture. Since economic development represents abundant resources and opportunities for potential entrepreneurs, we argue for an overall positive trend between economic development and entrepreneurial activity. However, we could not uphold the idea that higher economic development levels mean higher entrepreneurship rates. We constructed a panel dataset from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor and World Bank Group Entrepreneurship Surveys on 57 countries and found that a country’s entrepreneurship rate increases only moderately despite market-oriented regulations when the national cultural orientation towards low self-determination levels exists. Thus, economic development does not relate to entrepreneurship in the same way in countries with different institutional structures. In examining the complex interaction between economic development, government regulations, and national culture, we offer insights on the interaction between the underlying opportunities, formal incentives, and societal legitimacy required to start businesses.

The effect of power distance and individualism on service quality expectations in banking

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between Canadian and Indian consumers' national cultural orientations and banking service quality expectations. Using two of Hofstede's five cultural dimensions operationalized at the individual level, and five dimensions of service quality from Parasuraman et al.'s SERVQUAL scale, the aim is to develop and test hypotheses relating national culture values to service quality expectations.Design/methodology/approach – The study is quantitative in nature, using surveys (online and written) from respondents in Canada and India. Data were analyzed using dummy variable regression and structural equation modeling.Findings – The results show that the importance of various SERVQUAL dimensions is related to Hofstede's power distance and individualism cultural dimensions both at the individual and national levels. More specifically, consumers low on power distance expect highly responsive and reliable service. High power distance customers attach...

Reconceptualizing Service Encounter Quality in a Non-Western Context

This article seeks to explore the domain of service encounter quality as it exists in a non-Western culture and proceeds to develop a culturally sensitive multiple-item scale, PAKSERV. Both classical testing methods and item response theory measures were used for scale purification. The scale shows high internal reliability, convergent and discriminant validity at the scale level, and moderate to high category discrimination and information content at the item level. Multiple antecedents of encounter quality are discussed to explain the variation in encounter quality evaluations. Hypotheses are developed about the impact of a personal value system, national culture orientation, and consumer context variables on how consumers assign the importance weights to the dimensions of encounter quality. Using conjoint analysis, hypotheses are tested and quality management guidelines for service managers are developed.

Power Structure and Sociocultural Change in Latin American Communities

The article explores the proposition, as community power becomes increasingly rationalized, the local sociocultural system will become less parochial and increasingly similar to the national system. A power structure index and a culture elemtent index are established and applied to 19 community studies drawn from eight Latin American countries. Communities with less than 70 percent of the national culture elements are analyzed to derive a model of community power and sociocultural change in Latin America. The model suggests that the movement from folk to national cultural orientation at the community level is stimulated by an expanding population and brought about when the structure of community power loses its dependence upon local religious-nmagic institutions and assumes a greater autonomy. T hroughout Latin America communities are changing and something does the changing. That something can be termed power. Before defining power more explicitly the following quotation is offered to introduce a type case of a community in transi-